Music Online

Coming Soon from Alexander Street Press...

We are getting ready to launch seven new collections this year that reach across several different disciplines! Browse the upcoming collections.

Disciplines include:

• LGBT studies
• Health Sciences
• Performing Arts, Theatre & Film

Sign up here to be notified once the collection has launched and to request a free trial.

New music content added

This was a big week for our music products: we've added a lot of content to four different collections!

• 1,837 pages of content have been added to Classical Music Reference Library, representing four titles from Princeton University Press (if this month's issue of Music Media Monthly got you in a Schoenberg mood, you're in luck: one of those titles is Schoenberg and His World).
• 28 videos have been added to Dance in Video, with styles ranging from baroque to hip-hop. Dance in Video now contains 275 hours of video from 314 different titles.
• 18 new videos have been added to Opera in Video, including a number of performances from the Royal Opera House and several documentaries. The collection now contains 174 videos spanning 488 hours. 
• The biggest news of all: Classical Scores Library is now complete! The new content added to the collection (from composers like Girolamo Frescobaldi, Antonio Vivaldi, and Diana Blom) puts it at 400,000 pages of sheet music.

For more information about any of our music and performing arts collections, or to request a free trial or price quote for your library, email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

The February issue of Music Media Monthly is now live!

Whether your interest lies in reggae, choral Schoenberg, or the ukelele, this month's issue of Music Media Monthly has something for you (and if you like all three, we can pretty much guarantee it does). Featured are sound recordings of British folk, roots reggae from France, and the Westminster Cathedral Choir performing Palestrina. For performance fans, the videos are choral and opera works, and the books include a history of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and a look at Gershwin's theatrical composition career. And get a little taste of summer with the Web resources, all related to the ukelele. As usual, Music Media Monthly has something for every taste. Check out this month's issue here!

Interface enhancement for Music Online

We've made an important change to the Music Online interface based on the feedback from our customers.

We've moved the drop-down list, which allows users to go directly to the individual music collections that make up Music Online, from the bottom of every page to the top.  It is now located on the upper left hand side of the page underneath the About | System Requirements links.

We hope this change makes it easier for users to understand that they can search each of the music collections individually, in their native interface, as well as on the cross-search Music Online platform at music.alexanderstreet.com.

More new music content!

Just when you thought we were done adding content to Music Online this week, we went out and uploaded another batch of new content.

Three new titles have been added to African American Music Reference—Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers by Doug Ramsey, The Pilgrim Jubilees by Alan Young, and Rythm Oil: A Journey Through the Music of the American South by Stanley Booth.

We've also added Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, Vol. 8 by Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer to Classical Music Reference Library.

Classical Music Library gained 24 new albums from Wirripang, including contemporary compositions by Australian composers. New material from composers Betty Beath, Phillip Wilcher, John Martin, Jeanell Carrigan, Hugh Dixon, and others is now available.

Opera in Video now contains the 1956 recording of Casta Diva from Bel Canto Society, a film biography of Bellini's life, with performances of famous arias from his operas. The film features Caterina Mancini, Gianni Poggi and Giulio Neri.

Finally, an another 18,000+ pages of sheet music has been added to Classical Scores Library. The new content includes material from the Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance and Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era. Composers include Johannes Mouton, Pierre de la Rue, Tomaso Albinoni, Adriano Banchieri, Francesco Gasparini, Michel Lambert, Jacopo Peri, Giovanni Felice Sances, Orazio Vecchi, Adrian Willaert, and more.

Music Online now contains over 299,000 tracks for US and Canadian customers (over 264,000 for customers in other countries), nearly 67,000 pages of full-text reference, close to 24,000 scores, and over 400 streaming videos.

New music content added

We've just updated several of our online music collections with new content, which is available now to subscribers worldwide.

New music reference content includes I Dream A World: The Operas of William Grant Still by Beverly Soll, currently available in African American Music Reference. Classical Scores Library has been updated with over 11,000 pages from A-R Editions and Publications by Wirripang. The new scores include material from the Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance and Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era (A-R Editions), and feature composers Andrea Gabrieli, Orlando de Lassus, Claude le Jeune, Orazio Vecchi, Andre Pevernage, Costanzo Festa, Johannes Martini, and others. Contemporary Australian composers (Publications by Wirripang) include Betty Beath, Sylvia Rice, Diana Blom, Colin Brumby, Houston Dunleavy, Amanda Handel, Ann Carr-Boyd, and others.

The number of streaming audio tracks in Contemporary World Music has increased by over 35,000. New material in Afro-pop, Argentinian folklore, bachata, bhangra, Carnatic music, dancehall, Fado, flamenco, Ghazal songs, Hindustani, Judaica, Latin, Reggae, Son, and other genres is available from artists including Asha Bhosle, Balkan Beat Box, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Mercedes Sosa, Jose Calderón, Gurdas Maan, Artur Paredes, Ghulam Ali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and many more! New labels include Navras Records, Ariwa Sounds, Charsur, Discos Belter, EMI Pakistan, Hula Records, Indigenous Australia, Living Media India, Ovação, Sagarika Music, and more.

The growing Music Online suite now contains 298,739 tracks from 20,528 albums*, 65,200 pages of full-text reference, 20,867 scores, and 407 videos. Subscriptions to individual collections and Music Online packages are available to libraries worldwide. For more information, please contact sales@alexanderstreet.com.

* Track and album counts listed are for US and Canadian customers only. All other customers have access to 264,071 tracks from 18,039 albums.

Music Advisory Rountable at ALA

If you're heading to ALA in Washington, D.C., why not give our music editors 45 minutes of your time at our Music Advisory Roundtable? Conveniently located in the Washington Convention Center, our roundtable gives you the chance to voice your opinion and provide feedback on our current and future music collections. In exchange for your time we'll give you the opportunity to win a one-year subscription.

Our streaming audio content will triple in size by the end of 2010, we have new features, functionality, and cross-search enhancements to tell you about, and we're lowering prices. Be among the first to hear about all of it by attending this advisory roundtable and giving us your input!

The Music Advisory Roundtable is one of five roundtables we're hosting at ALA. You can learn more and RSVP here.

New music content uploaded

Several new albums, scores, and reference works were added to Music Online last month, and are now available to subscribing libraries. New content was added to Classical Music Library, Jazz Music Library, Classical Scores Library, African American Music Reference, and Classical Music Reference Library.

Newly added reference content includes Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties by Scott Saul (African American Music Reference), and 7 titles on classical composers like Wagner, Mendelsshon, and Haydn from Princeton University Press (Classical Music Reference Library.)

71 new scores from Faber Music and Universal Edition were added to Classical Scores Library, including compositions by Beethoven, Mahler, Mozart, Schumann, and more.

New albums added to Classical Music Library come from Mode Records, Mark Custom, Celestial Harmonies, and Lyrichord. Jazz Music Library has been updated with dozens of new albums from Jazzology, Original Jazz Classics, Pablo, and Prestige.

Remember, you can see a complete list of newly added content in each of our online music collections by clicking the "What's New" tab in the top toolbar.

Music Online now contains over 255,000 tracks*, close to 65,000 pages of text reference, almost 17,000 scores, and over 400 videos.

For more information on Music Online or any of the individual music collections, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

* Music Online customers in the US and Canada currently have access to over 255,000 tracks from over 17,000 albums. Customers in all other territories currently have access to over 220,000 tracks from over 15,000 albums.

Rave review of Classical Scores Library

The March 2010 issue of CHOICE features a rave review of Classical Scores Library, written by A.J. Adam. After highlighting the collection's playlist functionality and search, browse, and print options, Adam says, “A number of smaller pay-per-view and free collections are available from other providers . . . but the Alexander Street site is by far the largest and most comprehensive product on the market to date. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All users.”

CHOICE subscribers can read the full review here.

For more information on Classical Scores Library, or to request a trial or price quote for your library, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

New music content uploaded

New content has been added to several of our music listening and music reference collections. Subscribing customers can access the new additions immediately within the following collections:

• African American Music Reference: 1,317 pages in 15 titles from Chelsea House Publishers,
  Hampton Institute Press, and David McKay. New titles include:
  
  • Traditional Black Music Series (13 volumes) by Jerry Silverman (sheet music including spirituals, slave songs, songs of protest and civil rights)
  • Sheet music of hymns and religious folk songs published by
    Hampton Institute Press
  • Echoes of Africa in Folk Songs of the Americas (Beatrice Landeck)
  • African American Music Reference now totals 34,112 pages
• American Song: 912 tracks from 40 albums of traditional folk songs, rural blues, gospel hymns, and more. Highlights include:
  
  • 9 volumes of traditional folk songs recorded specifically for American Song by folk singer Jerry Silverman. These folk songs were collected and published in his Folk Song Encyclopedia. These are the recordings that complement the sheet music in the Encyclopedia. Liner notes for the songs include a description of the folk song plus the complete lyrics.
  • Country/rural blues from Takoma Records
  • I'm Going Down to North Carolina - The Complete Recording of the Red Fox Chasers, 1928-31, from Tompkins Square Records
• Classical Music Library: 3,528 tracks from 258 albums from Bridge Records, Celestial Harmonies, and Mark Custom Records, We’ve added 1,300 new compositions to the collection, including wind ensemble/wind symphonies, choral music, contemporary music by Luciano Berio, David Rakowski, and more. Examples of new albums include:
  
  • David Rakowski: Etudes, Vol. 3
  • Three Quartets: The Apollo Saxophone Quartet
  • Theme and Variations: Improvisations On Children's Songs
  • H. Kling: 40 Characteristic Etudes for French Horn
  • Susan Levitin, Gerald Rizze: 20th Century American Duos for Flute & Piano
  • The American Impressionist Organ
• Jazz Music Library: Additional indexing has been completed for over 1,000 albums in Jazz Music Library. We released new fields, including complete instrumentation, subgenres, and biographical data for these albums.
• Classical Scores Library: 9,716 pages from 205 scores from Faber Music, Ltd., and Universal Edition. New scores include compositions by Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson, Alban Berg, Victoria Borisova-Ollas, Anne Boyd, Arcangelo Corelli, Colin Matthews, Robert Schumann, Peter Sculthorpe, Carl Vine, Carl Maria von Weber, and more. Classical Scores Library now contains 14,757 scores and 318,263 pages.

Music Online now contains:

• 254,372 tracks (US/Canada customers) / 219,704 tracks (non-US/Canada customers)
• 17,644 albums (US/Canada customers) / 15,155 albums (non-US/Canada customers)
• 62,029 pages of text reference
• 16,764 scores (318,263 pages)
• 407 videos

To request a price quote or free trial to Music Online, or any of the individual music collections, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.